Never One For Pretenders
by Skalidra
Summary: Jason's already taken down the first ex-Talon, Dick, but now he's ready to go after the current one - Tim Drake, the replacement - too, and see if hurting Tim will actually hurt Bruce, or if they're all just as replaceable and unimportant as Jason was. - Earth-3 connected universe, mentions of Dick Grayson/Jason Todd.


**This is part of a larger continuity of stories. Please consult my profile for the master reading list if you want to read them in order.**

Welcome to day two of my apology week! Here, have some lovely backstory for my Earth-3 universe! This is the first time Jason goes after Tim, and takes place between 'Seeing Red and Green' and 'You're a Mean One'. Jason's already fought Dick once (I've got that planned too, no worries) and beaten him, and has had a skirmish or two with Bruce but mostly it's just been chases and no actual fighting.

This contains **warnings for :** Non-graphic violence, and Tim using what amounts to verbal warfare on Jason, which includes references to degradation, character death, torture/beatings, and dubcon-ish/prostitution themes. Enjoy!

* * *

It's so easy. So _damned _easy to get inside the mountain they call a base. A week of surveillance is the start of it; watching them come and go and nursing the anger — sick and twisting, green and red, and _hissing _— in my chest. Studying routes and timetables, hacking into the security systems with all the skills I've learned and settling myself in their systems, watching and learning when they eat, when they sleep, and what security measures are in place and how to get around them. How to make sure that no one sees anything but what I want them to. Hating and studying both of them, letting the blue and black shoulders — that damn _smile _— of my older brother eat away at me, and watching my _replacement_ work and live and breathe.

Learning how 'Talon' moves is easy, learning exactly what time is the best to slip inside the base is simple, and the patience of waiting to strike is one I learned a long time ago. Waiting for a night that my dear _brother, _Nightingale, is gone to Bludhaven, and that the rest of their 'team' is soundly asleep or scattered across the country while dear _Timothy _is still awake, barely feels like waiting at all.

After I activate the security in their rooms — I'd bet none of the precious _team _knows that all of their rooms can be gassed with any mixture the Owls want, at any time — and disable the system updates hooked up to the new Talon's laptop, getting inside is one of the simplest things I've done in a long time. Maybe it's just my familiarity with the Owl's brand of security systems, or maybe what they have really _isn't _as good as some of what I've had to contend with as a mercenary.

I added in my information and overrides to the base's security system days ago — no one noticed — and it lets me in without even a moment of hesitation, the side door not even beeping as it opens into the mountain.

I move quietly, slipping through corridors and empty rooms, _feeling _the silence at my core and flexing my hands to vent out the excess energy. I draw my knife into my left hand, flipping it between my fingers idly as I get to the main common room, pushing away the fury at the back of my mind to make room for precision at the sight of the bowed, black-haired head. He's sitting on the couch, near the middle of it, and apart from the tap of what I know are clawed fingertips against a keyboard, he's silent.

Talon. Precious little _Tim_, the kid Bruce put in my shoes not even _months _after my death. The one that took _my _place. Let's see him prove he can handle the name, to _me_, or let's see him bleed out and _die _for daring to think he could take _my _place.

I edge closer, taking care to be completely silent against the cement floor right up until I'm directly behind my replacement. He's working on something, some bit of code that I don't understand at first glance, and I flip my knife in my hand before I swing it. The crack of the hilt connecting with his skull is satisfying to every furious, jealous, _bitter _part of me, and he crashes sideways and falls off the couch, hitting the ground hard, as his laptop clatters down next to him, the lid getting smacked shut by the impact. He doesn't get up for just a second, enough time for me to circle the edge of the piece of furniture, before he braces both hands against the floor and pushes up and backwards, turning to find me. I can see him sway, clearly dizzy from the blow to the head, but I don't interfere as he gets to his feet, backing up over the sideways heap of the upside down laptop.

He's much shorter than me, still a teenager on the younger end, and thinner looking than I was at that age even underneath the fall of that familiar, blood-red cape. His mouth is parted just a touch, head tilted, and it looks like he's trying to focus on me, get into some kind of better stance, and reach for a weapon all at the same time. I don't bother stopping him from doing any of it. He's obviously unbalanced, and maybe I didn't hit him hard enough to break anything but it was hard enough to stun him. He won't be recovering from that real quickly.

Unless he ends up surprising me — and I've watched him fight, _studied_ it — he shouldn't be any real kind of threat.

He grabs a piece of metal about a foot long that hangs at the right side of his waist, flicking it out with practiced ease into the full length staff. Dick has his dual knives, when he bothers fighting with something other than his hands, and I was a single knife or bare fists kind of Talon, but the replacement's got that staff. He's good with it, but it won't be enough. Precious Tim isn't nearly as good a fighter as Dick, and I might have taken down my older brother — who was supposed to be mine, was _always_ supposed to care and be there and he deserved every _fucking_ inch of my knife in his stomach for breaking that promise — mostly by surprise, but I _know_ I'm better than this little bastard of a pretender.

"Red Hood," the replacement hisses, cold and sounding deadly enough for someone twice his size, and I almost laugh in his face because hey, I _know _that tone. That's one of Bruce's more common ones, and _oh _it works better coming from someone of his size and skill.

"_Talon_," I answer, and I can feel my mouth — hidden behind my helmet — curl in something between a grin and a sneer. I _hate _this little bastard, and I can feel the fury and the anger and the sickening, screaming _green _in the back of my skull. I told myself months and months ago, with Talia and Ra's, that I would hunt down this kid that Bruce had _dared _giving _my _name. That I would put a knife in his chest and see how the son of a bitch reacted to having a second Talon die on him.

See if it was just _me _that he didn't give a shit about, or if he really is an uncaring bastard underneath all that armor.

The knowledge that this is the reality of that fantasy — that desire I spent all this time planning, nursing, _wanting_ — is a hot, heavy, _satisfied_ fire in my chest. I want to tear this kid into pieces for daring to use my name, for _daring _to try and fill my shoes, and just to hurt Bruce. Just to spit in the old bastard's face.

I want him to _hurt_, and know that this is what it costs to ignore me, to discard me, to let me die and not even _notice _that I came back to life and dug out of my own grave. He doesn't _get _to get away with not avenging me. I'm more important than that, I'm _worth _something, and not even Bruce the mighty fucking Owlman gets to just ignore the fact that I got killed under his watch. I want at _least _the blood I'm owed. His, for forgetting about me and never giving a damn; Dick's, for lying through his _fucking _smiles and telling me I was his and always would be; and the Jokester's, for being a hypocritical son of a bitch and daring to call himself a _hero _after what he did to me.

I _deserve _that much. This kid is just a means to an end, and if I get to enjoy every second of his pain, of watching him _bleed_, that's just bonus.

"This is gonna be easy either way," I taunt, as he steadies himself and brings the staff up in front of him, clasping it with both of the red, clawed gloves, "but how about you drop that staff, get on your fucking knees, and I'll leave you alive when I'm done with you?"

He flashes a sharp, threatening smile at me — one of Dick's — but I can see the quiver in his shoulders, and the way his breathing isn't quite steady. Fear, or the leftover of me hitting him? "Alive is a broad term," he counters, "and I'm not that desperate, Jason."

"You know my name; _good_." I let my head tilt, _giving _him a second of warning before I lunge at him. He doesn't flinch — not bad — and I let my boot swing low and catch his laptop, kicking it up at him. His face slips out of whatever emotion he had on it, to a blankness I don't think I've even seen on Bruce, and without hesitation he snaps the staff just enough to knock the hunk of metal out of the air before it reaches him.

The follow-up is decent, a reversal of the movement that spins the staff as he makes an upwards sweeping swing of it at the underside of my chin. It's enough to force me to dodge it, ducking right but keeping my momentum as I brace on the outside foot and push off it, driving my knife at his left side. The staff comes between us as he backpedals, smacking it away from the meat and bone of his torso. I follow him, taking the hint and shoving my knife away into its sheath.

Sure, I could trade blow for blow with him all day, trying to stab him and keeping away from the swing of that staff, but why should I? He's smaller than me, he's weaker, he's not trained as well, and he's dazed from a head injury. I can take that staff right out of his hands, or at least use it against him, and I'm going to.

"What's the point," he interrupts his sentence with a sweep that whistles towards my head, forcing me to duck as he retreats away from the obstacle of the couch and into a more open area, "of this?"

I follow, waiting for an opportunity as he spins that staff around him and keeps its momentum going. All it'll take is a _second _of him mistiming something, and I'll have him. I can see the flaws in it from here, see the slight unsteadiness to his steps and his movements, but I'm patient. I know that not all of the fury, and the pain, and the desire to burn and tear and _kill _that sings and screams in my mind is actually mine, I know some of it is the Pit. It feels good to let it have me, and when I get that staff out of his hands I'll _let _it fill me with the anger that will burn away every other lingering thought, but not yet.

I'm a killer, I was trained by some of the deadliest people on the planet, and I can hold onto the precision and the skill as long as I need to. Tim's not a threat, and even if I let the anger consume me I'd still beat him into the ground, but I'm better than that.

"The _point?_"I mock, letting him think he's keeping me at bay with the sweeps of the staff and the threat of its impact with whatever I edge past the distance he's decided to keep me at. If he actually thinks he's holding me back he's delusional, and if I wanted to kill him quickly all I'd have to do is shoot him. "Of trying to kill you? 'Cause that's just for _fun_."

"You won't make it out of here alive," he spits, standing his ground. "If you think Owlman and Nightingale won't be here in _minutes_, or that the rest of my team won't hear this—"

"Then I'm _right_." I laugh at him, vicious and sharp edged and maybe a little insane but I _know _that. I _know _I'm not as sane as I was, not all the time. It's the Pit and that memory of laughter in the back of my mind and the _crunch _of bone giving underneath the swing of metal. "Your alarms are disabled, your _adorable _little team's unconscious thanks to that nifty gassing feature _you _installed, and _no one _is coming to your rescue, replacement. You should have guarded better, because _I _know names too. _Tim_."

He stiffens, pattern slowing for a second, and I take the advantage. It's easy to move in and grab the staff on a sideways strike, following its leftover momentum to press in close to the replacement and get my other hand on it too. He's reacting now, stepping back and trying to avoid me, but I plant my feet, swing my weight into him, and _yank _back on the staff. He's got the option to either be dragged with it and right in front of me, where it'll be less than a second to drive my helmet into his head and make him let go, or just give it up now. He chooses the second, letting the staff go and dropping both hands to his belt.

I'm sure he grabs something nasty, probably chemically based, but whatever it is he doesn't get the time to use it because I slam the staff's end back into him, at his right side because of the angle we're at. He spins from the force, doubling over, and a flip of the staff and swap of my hands sends the metal smacking across his shoulder blades, which drives him to his knees as I follow the momentum of the bounce back from the kid's shoulders and spin the other end up to crack into his lower jaw.

I don't think I break anything, but he goes down hard on his back and doesn't immediately move to get back up.

I step forward, turning the staff and pressing the end of it down along his throat and into the ground on the opposite side of his neck, pinning him closer to me for when he gets back enough consciousness to start trying to get away. Now he's caught between the press of that staff against his throat and my boots, one of which I shift forward onto his sprawled arm to step down on his wrist. I'm not totally sure what I'll do with my pinned replacement, once he's looking at me again, but I know he's going to try to fight me.

If Dick did the same thing to him that my older _brother _did to me — I can imagine Dick playing with this new pretty boy; hurting him, _fucking _him, and every part of me _screams _at that image — then this precious new Talon at least had enough potential that Dick didn't want to kill him. He hasn't put up a good fight yet, but I also happen to know he's been up for about eighteen hours already, and the first thing I did was stun him, so I guess he's not at his best.

Not that it should matter. No Owl should depend on being at his 'best' at all times; that's very rarely ever the reality. You can almost _never _control when you're going to be fresh off of rest and a good meal, and ready to take down anything, or at the end of a hard patrol that's already taken everything you have, and you just _have _to be able to keep going. Always train to fight with the disadvantage, so that on those rare times everything goes your way it will just make things easy.

Replacement drags in a breath, stirring and then freezing when the tug of his wrist doesn't get it out from under my boot. His head is tilted towards me, and I can't see his eyes but I'd bet that they're open and watching me. I shift the staff, angling it a little harder against his throat, and my gaze gets caught by the flicker of his Adam's apple as he swallows.

"Done already?" I hiss, spinning the metal and enjoying the way he tenses, legs drawing up as if he can use their leverage to get himself out of this situation. "Come on, replacement. You should be _better_ than that."

He sneers up at me, and I can see the wet crimson of blood against his teeth; my blow must have snapped his teeth together and cut the inside of his mouth somewhere. I can hear the Pit in the back of my mind, sounding like my own voice, hissing encouragement and urging me to spill more of the replacement's blood, make him hurt and suffer like _I _had to. I keep it at the back of my mind, but it takes some effort, and my hands flex on the staff in the physical manifestation of that effort.

He reacts, seeing my slight movement and interpreting it as a distraction — he couldn't be more wrong, and it's a sharp _focus _instead, but he has no way to know that — and he pushes hard off the brace of his legs, bringing his free arm up to shove the staff away as his legs come up and kick out at me. It's a decent escape, so I let him have it. I lean back to avoid the kick, pulling the staff back and letting him continue his momentum and roll backwards, his left arm twisting out since I haven't let him pull his wrist out from underneath my foot.

On one knee, his other foot up and braced to move, is definitely a better position for him than lying at my feet, even if I still have his wrist pinned down and he's still far too close and at too much of a disadvantage — since I have the weapon between the two of us — to be anything close to safe. I remind him of that by shifting my weight into the foot on his wrist and swinging the staff down at the side of his head. Not hard enough to kill him, that's not _personal _enough, but dangerous all the same.

He draws into himself, right arm coming up to protect his head, and the staff slams across the shoddy defense of that limb. It hits diagonally, into his lower arm about three inches above the wrist, across the slight gap, and then along his upper arm and shoulder. He cries out in pain, but it's not enough to cover up the _crunch _of bone, of something breaking and shifting how it's not supposed to.

I recoil before I realize what I'm doing, letting his wrist slip from beneath my foot and backing off a few steps.

Fear and _pain _burns in my chest, and the memory of a dark piece of metal hitting me with that same _crunch_, and that _fucking _laugh playing on loop in the back of my head. Green eyes and white skin and I'm _not _like him, I'll _never _be like him. I'm not sane, not all the time, but I won't let myself be _that_. Never.

Talon uses my retreat to get away and to his feet, favoring his right arm but not letting it stop him; keeping that side turned away from me and protected. What does he think of me backing off? Does he have any fucking _clue _what's in my head? What I had to go through to survive? What kind of _hell _the Pit was and how many nights I spent on Talia's rooftop, trying with everything I had just to hold on to my own sanity? To be able to come back at Bruce and Dick with _anything _but the howling, screaming, green _madness _that nearly ate me alive? Does he know that I _still_ have to fight, every day, just to keep it at the back of my mind?

Every _fucking_ day I lose a little more of myself, and it's not right but everything in me just wants to cling to sanity long enough to take what I'm owed. What the hell will it matter, once I've gotten my revenge and they all _know_ that this is what it costs to hurt me? What more will I have to hang onto?

I'm damaged, I _know _that, but I'm not broken. Not yet.

The metal of the staff feels wrong in my hands, raises threads of doubt and fear that I'm not comfortable with, so I spin it in my hands and fling it, without looking, across the room and somewhere behind me. Replacement's head follows it, but he doesn't go after it, and I can see his undamaged arm shifting beneath the fall of his cape to grab something from his belt. I flex my hands instead, feeling the weight of my gloves, and the reinforced knuckles. I don't need anything else, and beating the replacement with just my fists will feel _good_.

I just want to feel that. To make the madness in my skull quiet down for just a few minutes, to take that one step closer towards everything being _done_. I want to hit him; make him bleed and bruise and _scream_.

Make him _hurt_.

I snarl behind my helmet, and I can see the little bastard test his arm, raising it a fraction before letting it hang loose again. He doesn't wince, but the movement's small and stops quickly enough that it tells me his right arm isn't going to be much more help to him this fight. I can target that side, _force _him on the defensive to keep it away from me, and reinforce whatever damage is there with whatever I can land. It's going to cut down his mobility too; not having a second arm to do any acrobatic tricks with. As if I needed any more of an advantage.

"Are you just going to stand there?" he demands, in a sneering, condescending tone that I recognize from Bruce. Wow, the little _bastard _really is nothing more than a pretender. How fucking _dare _he call himself Talon when all he's doing is mimicking the rest of us?

My snarl curls my lips a little more, and I give him what he's asking for. I move forward in long strides, bursting into motion from my standstill, and I can see him react, start to pull whatever he's got out from underneath his cape, and I brace instead of pushing off my last step, spinning my momentum around in my other leg and driving it at his waist, and the appearance of his hand. He leaps back, keeping his weight on his toes and ready to move, and he's got smaller, utility knives in between each of his fingers. My foot hits the ground, and as his muscle bunches to throw the knives I let my weight and inwards movement drop me forward in a roll, hearing the metal whistle overhead as I roll over my back and drive upwards at the end of it, _right _in his face.

His hand is swinging for my throat as I get fully to my feet, and I duck my head and then lash out to slam an open palm into his solar plexus as his claws grate harmlessly across my helmet. It'll leave some scratches, but they're well worth the forced exhalation and him reeling backwards, struggling to keep his feet and get back his air at the same time. I keep my hand forward and follow, not giving him the time to recover, before pulling my hand into a fist and backhanding him, landing my knuckles high across his cheek and snapping his head to the side.

Which leaves him conveniently open to bring the bottom of my other hand down in a hammer strike at his collarbone. The armoring inside the suit absorbs some of it, but not enough that it doesn't drive his shoulder down with it, and drag a startled, breathless noise of pain from him.

When my knee comes up to take advantage of him being bent over — both of my hands bracing against the tops of his shoulders to hold him down for it — and smashes into his stomach, I don't even try to control the grin that takes over my face. It feels _great_.

He drops at my feet as I settle my leg back against the floor, left arm wrapping instinctively tight around his waist and his shoulders bowing inwards. I can hear and see him gag, struggle not to let the automatic urge to heave actually get that far, and I lift my foot and hook it under his left shoulder, bracing my heel against his injured collarbone — I didn't feel bone crack, it should just be bruising — and shoving him backwards. He sprawls, landing on his possibly broken arm, and it gives me a special kind of satisfaction to watch his jaw clench and his skin pale, even though he doesn't make a sound. He could barely breathe before, my knee in his stomach definitely didn't help that.

_Good_.

"Come on, replacement," I taunt, as he heaves in a breath, stomach clenching as his throat works in another swallow. "Nightingale's done worse to you, we both know _that_." He curls in on himself, head tilting as he stares up at me and tries to breathe, left arm shifting to brace against the cement. "This is _gentle_ compared to how he likes to play."

"Maybe how he played with _you_," Tim spits, teeth and lips red with blood, twisting in a snarl that I think might be one of mine.

Fury sparks sharp and bright, bringing jealousy and bitterness and pain and it all circles back around to leave me with nothing more than a hollow ache in my chest and only _rage _to fill it.

I snap my boot into his face, hearing the crunch of cartilage as he grunts under the impact and collapses back to the floor. It's not enough, not _enough_, and I step across and then kneel down over him, fitting my left knee into the center of his back and leaning my weight into it. I wrap my left hand in his hair, wrenching his head up, and the laugh that comes out of my throat is bitter and angry, _broken _in all the ways I swore I wasn't.

"Do you think you're special, _Tim?_" I demand, forcing him to arch his head back until he gives a choked, breathless, groan. "Do you think either of them _care _if you die? How much do you want to bet there'll be another Talon in your spot in _weeks?_ Some other _stupid _little boy who thinks either of them is capable of concern for anyone but themselves?"

Memory pushes at my fury; blue eyes and the _shock _in them, the _pain_. Dick's hand on my wrist as he stared into me, through every defense I thought I had, and asked me _'why.' _The desperate, _raw,_ shout of my name at my back, as I all but ran from his complete incomprehension that I was capable of actually hurting him. How _much _I could read on his face, and in his body language. Fear and anger and pain and _grief_.

"Has he _fucked _you yet?" I ask with another laugh, to distract myself from the uncomfortable knot taking up residence in that hollow in my chest. I let it _burn _in the fury and the green. "Pinned you up against some wall and dragged his nails down your back, smiled at you through your own blood on his lips?" Replacement struggles, left hand scraping at the ground as he tries to get enough leverage to get away from the pin of my weight. "_That's _as close as dearest _Dick _will ever get to caring about any of us, replacement. You're delusional if you think either of them give a damn about you as anything but a _tool_."

"Or maybe I'm just _better_," he spits out, through clenched teeth. "You were always a _failure_, Jason. Nightingale slept with you because it was _convenient_; you were never worth more than the fact you were closer to his room than any other hole he wanted to use." My breath shortens, my hand tightens, and Tim laughs, vicious and with a twist of his lips in a sneer. "You _idiot_; you let him use you and thought he _cared_. You thought that smile and his little whispered promises _meant _anything. I'm amazed you lasted as long as you did as such a naive _fool_."

Part of me screams to shut him up. To slam his head forward against the floor and keep doing it until he's not anything more than blood and bits of skull and brain matter. But the rest of me is caught and silent, hovering and stuck in a sick fascination to know what he's going to say next.

Tim _laughs_, a little rough but mostly just dark, _cruel_. "The only thing they _cared _about was that your failure didn't stain the name 'Talon.' You're a worthless _waste _of space and time, so caught up in your own emotions that you can't even tell that the people around you despise you. A street rat so messed up that you thought just because Dick fucked, hurt, and _used _you that he _cared_. How many other people have done that to you, _Jason? _How _broken _are you that you'll cling to anyone who whispers a _word _of caring in your ear while they make you _bleed?_" His sneer is bloody, and I'm frozen and hardly breathing, so focused on his words and this _pain _in my chest I can't even find it in me to make him stop talking.

Make him _stop_ spitting truths and facts in my face and telling me how little I _matter_.

"If I got my claws in your back and told you I was so _proud _of how well you could take the pain would you kneel for me, _street rat? _I'm sure I could get Nightingale to come play with you again, _after_ Ibreak you in and hurt you enough to make you loyal." There's a roaring in my ears, a rush of blood and anger but mostly just pain and guilt and _shame_. "Or does it take someone older to make you feel _loved_, Jason? To give you that parental approval you _crave_, and see how low you'll sink to get it. You're already letting Ra's and Talia wrap their leashes around your throat, why don't you just make it official and let them fuck you too?" His sneer widens to a grin, and he spits out, "Did you let the _Jokester _fuck you, Jason?"

I jerk backwards, away from him, away from that accusation, away from the pain and the metal and oh _god_. I'm halfway across the room before I realize it, and I'm shaking, and my breath is coming hard and fast, _too _fast.

Tim gets to his feet and turns to me, still grinning and baring his bloody teeth, still _talking_. "Sounds like he's got all your requirements, _Jason_. He hurt you, he _used _you, and the Jokester is _always _talking about how he'd like to save us from a life of crime and give us a real home, how we could have a _life_. Did you offer him a ride, Jason?"

"_No_," I snarl, managing to force it up my throat and past my teeth. Everything is— I _can't_— _God_.

"I read your files, _Jason_. You _sold _yourself to Owlman for a home, and the _second _Nightingale was interested you surrendered to him too. Dead and come back, and even _now _you still can't seem to stop selling yourself to anyone who shows even a little interest. Ra's, Talia." Another laugh, a moment that lowers his grin to a smirk. "You're a _mercenary_, Jason. You make a living off of selling yourself to whoever wants a _pet _for a day. Does that scratch the itch, street rat? All of that and here you are, still desperate for the approval of two men who _never cared to begin with_. You're just a _whore_."

I jerk like he's struck me, my eyes closing as my shoulders fold inwards and my breath catches in my throat and refuses to let me inhale again. God, it _hurts_, and I can't _breathe_ for how much pain I'm in and he hasn't even touched me. Hasn't done anything but spit accusations and truth at me, but it feels like he's gutted me; reached into my chest and ripped away something important, something I _need_.

"You're _nothing _more than an orphaned, _useless, _street kid trying _desperately _to prove you're not the rough, broken, _scared_ thing that you are. Trying to get _anyone _to use you just so you can feel _wanted. _You've _never _been more than that, and you're the _only _one who doesn't see it. Your death was a _gift_, Jason."

My knees weaken, and I almost slump to the ground before I catch myself. God, I… He… It's not true. God, it's _not_. Please, _please_. My hands are shaking, _I'm _shaking.

I drag in a breath, and I can feel it at the back of my mind. My escape, my salvation. A way to numb out all this pain and _agony_. The Pit's seething, roiling, _screaming _green madness is just waiting, and I know it's not this bad. It's just anger, and it takes my sanity but I can pay that to make this— to make _all _of this _stop_. God I'd pay _anything _not to feel this way.

I let go, and let it have me.

I exhale, and it comes out a laugh. The hot rush of green _rage _fills me, wiping out that hollow ache in my chest and the stabbing _agony _of knowing no one has _ever _cared for me. That no one _cared _that I died, or when I came back. That I'm a tool, and a weapon, and a hole, and when I'm not that anymore why should anyone stop to care about _me?_

I just _laugh_, opening my eyes and letting all of that fade away, get eaten and shoved down into the depths of me where I don't have to think about it. My hands clench to fists, and I aim a vicious, furious, _grin _at Tim. He can't see it, but that doesn't _matter_. I don't bother warning him, or speaking, I just lunge at him. Shooting him isn't personal enough, it's not good enough. I need to feel his throat under my hands and watch him die, watch him bleed and choke and _beg_.

He recoils, tries to react, but he's hurt and I'm not. He's _slow_.

I drive my fist into his face, and then grab him by the broken arm as he falls backwards and wrench it up, holding him up with it and _squeezing_. He screams, and nothing has ever felt so _good _before. He tries to get his feet underneath him, his other hand curling around my lower arm, but I bring my free hand in and hit him again, driving into his stomach and aiming to hit _just _where I already hurt him with my knee. The weight of him falling back centers back through his broken arm, and he makes a strangled, choking, _keen _of a noise that widens my grin.

I want to see him _bleed_, so I reach down for my knife, pull it out of the sheath at my right thigh, and pull it up just high enough to drive it in between his lower ribs. He goes _very _still, mouth parting in a silent gasp, and I take a second to enjoy the feeling, to memorize the _sight _of my knife buried in his side. Then I let go of his arm, and let him falling backwards pull his body off the knife, leaving behind a sheen of blood that covers the entirety of the blade. He hits the ground, cries out, and then arches for a second before stilling.

The blood isn't obvious against the black fabric of his uniform, but I know a wound like that will be bleeding a lot, rapidly. If it doesn't get treated, _soon_, the blood loss will make it fatal.

Still, even through the contained twitches of his shoulders, he flashes a sneer at me that makes me want to hurt him, stab him again, slit his _fucking _throat. "Is that _it?_" he mocks, and I jerk forward with my knife in hand, down towards him, before the buried, sane part of me _sharply _regains control.

He's doing that on _purpose_. No one mocks an enemy that just put a knife in them unless they _want _to be stabbed again. He spat everything he could think of at me and made me hurt, made me vicious and unbalanced, barely _sane_. He was already at a disadvantage, he was already beaten. I was going to take my time and make him suffer, but instead…

One more drive of the knife would kill him. At least, send him into shock. He's already edging there — I can see the faint shudders along his thighs and his shoulders — but wouldn't it be nice to cut the pain out early? He knew I was going to kill him, I _told _him that right at the start. If you're already beaten, if there's no chance of victory or rescue, why _wouldn't _you taunt and coax your enemy into a rage to make him kill you faster?

Isn't that what _I _did?

I crouch down instead, closing my eyes for a moment to push away some of the Pit's madness, and it doesn't go easily but I've had practice, and I _make _it. Tim is still sneering at me, but I ignore that, and reach down past him to grab a handful of his cape and bring it up. I slowly, as calmly as I can manage, wipe my knife off, and then tuck it back away in its sheath.

"I don't think so, _replacement_. I'm not done with you yet." His sneer fades, and I push back up to my feet and stand over him. His left hand is pressed over the stab wound, and the blood blends fairly decently so it's hard to see how much it's really bleeding. "Let's see if dear _Owlman_ shows up fast enough this time, shall we? I'm not betting on him, but if he _does _get here in time to patch you up I'll see you again, _Tim_. You'll regret _ever _picking up my name, pretender."

I turn my back on him, and head out of the room, _barely _managing to keep from looking back. When I'm out of view I reach down, retrieving the small phone I hooked up to this base's security system. A code and a touch of one button deactivates the gas mixtures in the rest of the team's rooms, and I wait until I'm back out of the mountain to activate a short burst of the alarms. There's no way to see from out here, but I know that inside will blare a loud siren that will at least wake up the ones less susceptible to sedatives. Lightning, at least, would definitely burn through them fast enough that this will get him up.

I want this public, I want it _known _that someone broke into the base of the younger generation of Crime Syndicate minions and took apart one of the Owlman's Talons. I want him to _have _to acknowledge that it happened; I want the rest of the Syndicate biting at his heels and pressing him for any further sign of weakness. I want him stressed, and tired, and to see me as the _threat _that I am.

I get out of the area pretty much as fast as I can; I'm not looking to still be there when either Dick or Bruce show up, or if the team does a surrounding sweep to try and find me. I'll be abandoning my safe house as soon as I clear it out, too. It won't take long for them to track my link to the security, not now that they know I'm there. Bruce will be distracted for a while, but I shouldn't count on that stopping him from tracking me down as well.

First, if he gets there in time, he'll need to get dear Tim to an operating room as quickly as possible. If he's _especially _smart, he'll bring our resident medic with him, and do it in the base. Thompkins can work miracles when motivated, and she's always patched us together after things go _really _bad. The replacement might survive.

_Then _he'll focus his attention on me, and I know from when I hurt Dick that he'll hunt me down; we'll fight. I could try and hide, but why bother? His attention, his anger, his _pain_, is what I want. If I'm not there to see it, why does it matter? I'll make it hard for him, and I'll make him struggle to find me, but I won't drop off the grid like I know I could.

I _want_ that fight.

The screens are still turned to the important views of the base when I get back to the apartment I'm calling a 'home,' so whatever's happened they haven't cut off my hijack of their security just yet. I study the view as I move to start packing, keeping half my attention on what I can see. My chosen views are the two entrances — the main 'garage' entrance, and the side one I used to get in — and the common area where I ambushed dear _Tim_.

He's still on the floor where I left him, but there's the dark red and black figure of Arsenal crouched over him, both gloved hands pressed to the hole in my replacement's side. He's saying something, a forced grin on his face, and Tim looks like he's still conscious, but he's not answering. He's pale, but the rise and fall of his chest is steady and normal. Breathing pattern; conserving his air and keeping his pulse low to minimize blood flow. Smart.

There's a bit of blood trickling down the side of his face, from a swelling cut below the edge of his mask that I'm almost certain is a result of my last strike to his cheek. My gloves are designed to hurt. Other than that, and the slowly swelling bruises evident on the rest of his face from my other strikes, he doesn't really show any sign of how badly I beat him. He's covered neck to toe in the Talon uniform, and blood isn't supposed to show up on that. It's _supposed _to hide that you're injured at all, so long as those injuries aren't knife slashes or something way more obvious.

I pack necessities first — weapons, cash, fake identification — and get most of the way through it before the garage entrance opens, and one of Bruce's planes all but collides with the opposite wall, coming in faster than I thought was possible without crashing. It's an expert twist and halt by firing the thrusters in the opposite direction, and _can't _be comfortable for anyone inside. It's one of his two-seater planes, which means he sacrificed a bit of speed for the ability to carry a second person. If I remember right, Dick's off in Bludhaven. _Possible_ Bruce stopped by, but not likely.

The jet sets down, harder from the lack of deceleration beforehand, and the top opens almost immediately. Bruce leaps out, metal-lined cape flaring dramatically, and then turns back to offer a hand to the second passenger. She's got a mask over her eyes, and her hair is pulled back in a bun instead of curled around her face like usual, but I'd know Dr. Thompkins anywhere. Good; precious Tim might just make it out of this one. I'll get a second go at him.

He helps her down — I can see his dislike of being still for even that short period — and then says something, turns, and hurries out of the garage as the main door slides shut again. She's not as fast — she's wearing low heels — but she's only a few steps behind him.

I straighten up a bit, closing the last zipper on my bag and pausing to watch the screen with Tim's bleeding, mostly still, form. That's a lot of concern on Arsenal's face, actually, more than I'd expect from any of their sort-of allies. Most would probably do the minimum — try and keep Talon alive — to make sure that Owlman doesn't kill them for letting his sidekick bleed out on their watch, but I didn't expect any actual concern from any of them. Sure, Red Archer's friendlier with the big Owl than most others, but as far as I knew Arsenal wasn't particularly good friends with Tim or Dick.

But then Dick doesn't make _friends_, he just fucks whatever he wants and leaves it at that.

I tap my fingers against the bag, narrowing my eyes behind my helmet and considering my replacement's face. He… God _damnit _I'm kind of impressed with him.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

He's not my physical equal, and he really didn't put up much of a fight, but I could see the _potential_ for a hell of a fight if he was just trained a little more, or if I hadn't stunned him right at the start. He's _smart _too. I knew he was, at least on paper, but I never really got the chance to see it up close before today. What he _said_…

It still hurts. All of it. It's a biting, clinging, hollow _burn _of pain that I can't smother without the even worse flame of the Pit.

He's never even _seen _me face to face before; we've never met. That means that everything he said was just a creation of his mind, a review of whatever the hell is in my file that he exploited and weaponized damn near _perfectly_. If he knew the more recent things, if he knew how slippery my sanity already is and about my new claustrophobia, the sharp _fear _of having my hands tied behind my back…

I think he could have triggered a panic attack. _Easily_.

That's… Alright, it's _fucked _up, and it's manipulative and cruel and it makes me want to sever his tongue so he can never speak again, but _damn_. It's also really fucking impressive, even to me. If Bruce was that good at it, I would have been dead a long time ago. If I hadn't stunned him and broken his arm, it's possible that Tim would have been able to use the distraction of his words and actually physically hurt me, maybe even pretty badly. Maybe enough to win.

I close my eyes, taking in a deep breath and trying to ignore that my hands are faintly shaking.

I don't think I can fight Bruce like this. If he comes after me with how fucked up I feel, and I try and fight him, I think he really will kill me. I think… I think I need some time to pull myself back together.

I'll drop off the grid for a while. Find some small apartment in some corner of a city that he won't think to look, make _sure _he doesn't track me there. Spend some time practicing, drilling, and somehow either removing or coming to terms with what Tim pointed out and threw in my face. True or not, they're just words. I should be able to handle it.

I just need a little time to recover.

* * *

So, yeah. Tim might not be Jason's physical equal, but he's smarter and he's perceptive in a very different way. Jason is all instinct-perception, whereas Tim is much more like Bruce in that he sees facts and files them away about people, which basically means that Jason's better at short-term and Tim's better at long-term. It also means that the more Tim is around Jason, and the more he fights him, the better he's going to get at specifically beating Jason, whereas Jason doesn't really learn specific people's combat styles unless he has a good reason to and puts effort into it (or he fights/spars with them a few dozen times or more).

Also, I was informed that yesterday (April the 27th) was the anniversary of Jason's death! I'm writing a piece for that, which is Jason/Roy for the most part, and it doesn't look like it's going to be that long, so I should get it up within a few days. Be back tomorrow with something else!


End file.
